Many of us have experience with working in virual teams. I think you would agree that most of the time, it's not so effective as having the team together, in one office. We all know why - lack of face-to-face interaction, hence insufficient level of communication.

Working as project manager in a corporation, I haven't seen my team after 6 months of running the project with no chance to change it any time soon! We don't use webcams during our web meetings so only way how to follow body language is the speach.

Once I realized that team is not listening me and was a bit angry because of that. So I analyzed situation later that day and realized that my tone of voice was different as usual. Why? I was pretty tired (thanks to my neighbours partying last night ). So the next day I prepared myself with some voice exercises, checked some funny video to get to better mood. Only after that I joined the call. You can guess what happened. Better response

Ever since, I pay attention to it. Also, to the tone how my colleagues are speaking. I already know their baselines so I can pick up any discrepancies (pitch, cadence,...) and dig into it. I don't interrogate them, just want to make sure they understand the situation or know how to do some tasks.

Interesting, Dafteaux. I haven't had a lot of experience in this, but I distinctly remember that when speaking to someone on the phone, smiling can actually be 'heard'.

General team cohesiveness can be enhanced, also, by allowing a couple of minutes to connect personally. It can help avoid future disagreements or misunderstandings. Read this somewhere, but it was so crystal clear that it has stuck with me for years. Personal interaction glues your team together.

If you are presenting 'voice only', I can imagine that your voice variation will be immensely important to you. Also, I wonder if using shorter, bite-sized (ha! a joke!) sentences may help your team follow you more easily. If you have excitement and are in a good mood -- as you found -- you will naturally be more interesting and easier to follow. I will be interested to see if anyone else has a solid take on this.

I used to run my own business and had to do prospecting calls over the phone to get new clients. I found that physically standing up when making the call is a good way to project confidence and authority. I imagine that would work as a project manager or other roles too, where you need to come across as in control and confident.

Quite often I use this sentence as a pattern interrupt or to gain total focus or to change the direction of a conversation - or to change a negative mood or unwanted response feeling to a positive one or as part of hypnosis. .. I am studying hypnosis.

Back on topic - smiling, standing up, power posing, feeling positive makes a lot of difference over the phone.

Having a decent handset and non-compressed telephone line can work wonders - I have tinnitus and really struggle to listen to some who call me.

I recently started working on a project where the team lead is offsite, in a different state, and communicates via email. We don't get much voice interaction, so that is not a key piece. I find this style of management very frustrating through. It is really important to be able to see the person.

In one situation, the team lead became very frustrated and angry about something and accused us of making things up. it turns out that due to computer restrictions at our location, we could not see the confidential material he could to make the right calls. He thought we were making up "technical difficulties." Based on that, I do think it best to inquire before reacting. I also noted that he probably said some things in an email that he would not have said in-person.

Finally, all are unsure of whether to ask him questions at all at this point. He wants questions. Sometimes it is tough to tell if he is frustrated by so many questions, yet if we don't go to him he seems frustrated. It would be so much easier if we could have the person with us, seeing what we are seeing. We would also be able to read where he is more often. Who knows if he is having a bad or good day? Is busy or available? There is just no bonding interaction. I find it tough, especially with strictly asynchronous, not dynamic interaction. It sounds like you have more dynamic conversation in real-time and are managing impact based on feedback you get through the interaction. That is missing here.

Thanks for posting. This is a very recent experience, and has been on my mind as I go through the body language course.

I absolutely agree that face-to-face with team are the best for making things done. With some people it's difficult as they preffer emails and will not participate in calls in any costs. But I would never expect that from project manager.Hopefully, he will realize that soon. If not, send him link to this topic